Wisconsin

More and more Americans are fed up with freshman Senator Ron Johnson's single-handedly blocking the Senate from even considering the nomination of Victoria Nourse to Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinelreported that:

Johnson's decision to block the judicial nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor has drawn a pointed letter of protest from a group of legal academics around the country.

Johnson has singlehandedly held up consideration of Victoria Nourse for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

"For a single senator from one state within the Circuit to assert a hold, months after the nomination was complete, undermines Wisconsin's merit-based selection system, blocking highly qualified nominees from a hearing and a vote," reads the letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont and the panel's top Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa. "The effect is an unbreakable one-person filibuster."

The professors say a "a nominee of sterling credentials who has served under both Republicans and Democrats" should not be subject to "unending delay." You can click here to see the letter and its 53 signatories, some of whom served under Republican presidents.

Indeed, the letter shows Nourse's support across the ideological spectrum. In addition to progressive legal scholars, signers also include conservatives like Randy Barnett (a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who has challenged the constitutionality of the healthcare reform law) and David Bernstein (author of Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform). The signers also include ten scholars from Wisconsin law schools. All agree that Nourse would make an excellent judge.

Nourse was originally nominated by President Obama more than a year ago after consultation with Wisconsin's two senators. Unfortunately, because of the unprecedented obstruction of qualified judicial nominees by Senate Republicans, Nourse was among the dozens of nominees who the Senate was prevented from considering before 2010 came to an end. President Obama renominated her in January, with the new Congress that now includes newly elected Senator Ron Johnson.

Johnson complains he should have been consulted before the renomination even though the appropriate consultation with Wisconsin's senators occurred when Nourse was originally nominated. Other states with new Republican senators have faced the same situation with the re-nominations of judicial nominees who were originally nominated last year. In every case but Wisconsin, the new Republican senator has allowed the nomination to go forward. Only Senator Johnson has refused.

It’s election day in Wisconsin; time to get out there and vote! Today is the first of a slew of recall elections in nine of Wisconsin’s state Senate districts, with six Democrats running to reclaim seats from incumbent Republicans, and three Republicans trying to oust Democrats. What does that mean? The Dems could really win back the Wisconsin State Senate.

In today’s race, David VanderLeest, a Republican who has been under investigation by the Oconto County Sheriff’s Department for reported domestic abuse and child abuse, challenges Democratic State Senator Dave Hansen. In good news, Monday’s Daily Kos poll found that 62% of likely voters in SD-30 said they would vote for Hansen; only 34% said they would vote for VanderLeest.

That doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, though. There’s still time to sign up with Call Out the Vote to make G.O.T.V phone calls, and there are still resources on ways to help at the We are Wisconsin website. Check out our Recall the Right campaign and, of course, if you live in Wisconsin, go vote!

At yesterday’s press conference on Capitol Hill, People For the American Way joined with Rev. Jesse Jackson, 12 other national civil rights organizations and numerous members of Congress to denounce the draconian and suppressive voting measures that have been enacted or are being considered by states across the country.

These laws, which create strict voter ID requirements, will have the effect of disenfranchising over 20 million potential voters who do not have any form of government-issued identification. Voters targeted by this legislation are disproportionately minority, low-income, disabled, elderly or student voters – all populations that the measures’ proponents see as an obstacle to their agenda. Strict voter ID measures have been introduced in more than half of the states so far this year, and Kansas, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina and Wisconsin have already passed the legislation.

Of course, past investigations of voter fraud in this country have come to a startling conclusion: it doesn’t exist. Even during a five-year campaign by President Bush’s Justice Department to prosecute voter fraud, only a few dozen people were ever convicted. In most cases, they had cast votes without knowing they weren’t eligible.

We believe that it is every eligible American’s constitutional right to cast a vote that counts on Election Day. Efforts to prevent students, minorities, and disabled, elderly or low-income individuals from engaging in our nation’s civic and political life will not be tolerated and are simply not the American Way. People For the American Way is committed to fighting these suppressive voting measures alongside our civil rights allies and will continue to work with our network partners across the U.S. to ensure that every eligible American is able to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Yesterday, members of a number of Wisconsin progressive groups gathered in front of the Wisconsin capitol to demand that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser step down until an investigation into his alleged choking of another justice is complete.

Prosser – who once called the state’s female Supreme Court Justice a “total bitch” and then bragged about it – is accused of placing another female colleague in a chokehold during an argument about the state’s controversial budget bill. The justices who witnessed the incident have provided differing accounts of what happened, while Prosser’s allies and the right-wing media have teamed up to blame the alleged victim.

Speakers at the rally laid out the reasons for Prosser to step down until the investigation is completed:

Anthony Prince, a labor lawyer likewise representing the lawyers' group, told the crowd that asking Prosser to step aside is "not a radical proposal," adding that most employers would place an employee accused of similar behavior on administrative leave while the accusations were investigated.

"An employer has a legal obligation to provide a workplace free of hazard," Prince said. "We are the employer of Justice David Prosser."

Subeck agreed: "Every woman is entitled to a safe workplace, free of violence." She told the crowd that one out of every 250 women will be a victim of workplace violence, and also cited a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics study (PDF) finding that, in 2009, workplace violence accounted for 24 percent of all nonfatal violence against employed people age 16 or older.

There is a reason the rest of the country has its eye on Wisconsin, said Scot Ross, executive director of liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. Ross said Prosser has brought "dishonor" to the state's highest court because of his violent behavior.

The Wisconsin GOP has been going to great lengths to sabotage efforts to conduct fair and open recall elections in Wisconsin. Instead of honestly putting their candidates against the Democrats and letting the voters decide between the two, they are running fake Democratic candidates in the primaries in an attempt to confuse voters and draw out the process. They have even distributed posters designed to encourage Republican voters to participate in the Democratic primary and vote for their planted candidates.

Adding to the list of dirty tricks, reports are surfacing that a “Right to Life” group is robocalling Wisconsin Democrats and telling them not to go to the polls today, and instead to wait for an absentee ballot to arrive in the mail. This is false, as July 12 is the last day to cast a vote in the Democratic primary, and there is not enough time to cast a vote by mail. Apparently, the robocalls are coming from a 703 area code (Virginia).

We do not know yet exactly who is ultimately responsible for these calls, and even if an individual is caught and takes the fall, we may never find out who’s really pulling the strings. Whoever they are, they are obviously people in synch with the right wing agenda of Governor Walker and the Koch Brothers. Disenfranchising voters by tricking them into not voting is a tried and true method of voter suppression. So is finding excuses at the polling place to keep certain people from voting, as GOP-pushed voter ID laws do. What all the tactics we see in Wisconsin have in common is that the right wing is pulling out the stops to prevent the people from exercising their constitutional right to remove them from office.

Democrats in the Wisconsin state legislature got their first look at the new district map, which shamelessly ignored the law and [] redistricted Democrats out of their districts. John Nichols at the Nation has a great piece explaining how the Republicans put their political interests above the law: for example, in flouting a law which requires the state legislature to wait until local governments have drawn their own maps, designed to ensure “communities are not cut up for partisan purposes.” Democrats are now suing, calling it a ‘naked power grab’, and with Democratic candidate Nancy Nusbaum being drawn out of her district by half a block[] it’s hard to disagree with that characterization. Currently, state legislature plans to vote on the maps next Tuesday.

From the Desperation Files, we have Luther Olsen and his campaign’s underwhelming attempt at spinning his dire fundraising numbers. His campaign has attacked Fred Clark for not having enough contributors in the district – despite that small, irrelevant fact that Clark has more contributors in the district than Olsen. I suppose that’s what happens when your opponent has over twenty times as many contributors as you do, Luther.

Finally, take a moment to think of poor Sen. Robert Cowles, who may be being bullied into supporting Walker’s radical agenda. Because while families are being forced to make sacrifices and struggling to make ends meet, the worst thing Robert Cowles has to fear is a primary challenge and fewer campaign contributions from big corporations. Don’t you feel sorry for him?

The budget forced through the Wisconsin legislature by Republicans takes effect today, and there certainly will be some changes taking place throughout the state as a result. Regardless of the political drama that captivated the nation leading to this bill, what most people care about is how it will actually affect their daily lives. At the most basic level, people want to know if this bill leave them better off. For most Wisconsinites, the answer is a definite no.

This bill will make life more difficult for

Working families trying to raise kids (the bill reduces tax credits by $65m)

Anyone on Medicaid ($500m in cuts)

University of Wisconsin students (5.5% tuition hike)

Children of undocumented immigrants (no more in-state rates)

Middle school students who dream of going to college (a program that helps qualified students get financial aid)

Public servants of all kinds (retirement age raised)

There were, however, a few beneficiaries:

Former President Ronald Reagan (Feb. 6 is now "Ronald Reagan Day")

People who are rich enough or have enough rich friends to run for office without public financing (it’s no longer available)

The award for Most AwkwardElevator Encounter of the weekgoes to Justice Prosser and the FOX6 team. I think, and I’m not sure, that maybe Justice Prosserdoesn’t want to answer theirquestion (although he did grab themicrophone at first, so who knows), or it might be that I’m being unfair and the corner of that elevator is just really fascinating. Watch for yourself and see what you think.

In other Prosser/Bradley news, William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection makes a charming argument that Bradley may need to be held accountable for her accusation that Prosser put her in a “chokehold”, because “a chokehold requires that there be sufficient pressure applied as to put the person at risk of reduced oxygen or blood flow.” Personally, that’s the test of civility I wish to see in the high courts: if there’s no risk of reduced oxygen, it’s a regular part of healthy judicial process!

UPDATE: We Are Ohio blew the 231,000 signature requirement out of the water and today delivered a whopping 1.3 MILLIONpetition signatures to get repeal of SB 5 on the ballot! I hope Gov. Kasich, the Koch brothers and all the other right-wing ideologues and corporate interests are getting nervous!

Rep. John Nygren says he’ll challenge the GAB’s ruling that he fell short of the required adequate signatures. However, the possibility of rehabilitating signatures is over. Don’t worry, John, I believe in you, you got this.

It seems running from reality is fashionable among Wisconsin Republicans, as Luther Olsen has been unavailable to meet with constituents several times. To be fair to Olsen, if I was him, I’d be pretty ashamed too. Check out the video, it’s fun.

Last weekend, about 200 young, progressive elected officials gathered in Washington at the sixth annual convening of PFAW Foundation’s Young Elected Officials Network. The Network, which includes over 600 state and local elected officials from across the country, honored five of its own who have done exceptional work in their communities over the past year.

City Councilman Melvin Carter of St. Paul, Minnesota was awarded the YEO Network’s Barbara Jordan Leadership Award. The award, named after PFAW Foundation co-founder Barbara Jordan, honors “a young elected official who has shown dedication and support to the YEO Network and has a distinguished record of public service to their community and the progressive movement at large.”

Carter, who is now the YEO Network’s Minnesota state director, became involved in politics after his brother was turned away from a Florida polling place in the 2000 elections. As an elected official, he has continued to work for voting rights and for equal rights and opportunity in his community. In 2009, Carter founded the Frogtown/Summit-University Community Investment Campus, a partnership between city, county, school, and community leaders to support high quality education outcomes for all children. Another priority of his is transit equity: he’s working to create opportunities for local businesses and affordable housing along a planned light rail line in St. Paul.

PFAW Foundation’s president, Michael Keegan, presented the Presidential Award of Distinction to Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson, one of the state senators who left the state this winter to try to prevent a union-busting law from being passed. Larson has been a strong voice for working people in Wisconsin and around the country.

South Dakota State Senator Angie Buhl was awarded the YEO Network Leadership Award for her deep commitment to the YEO Network and People For the American Way Foundation. Sen. Buhl, who is the youngest member of South Dakota’s legislature, is a graduate of both of PFAW Foundation’s youth leadership programs, Young People For and the Front Line Leaders Academy.

Florida State Representative Dwight Bullard was awarded the YEO Progressive Leadership Award for his commitment to fighting for justice and opportunity in the Florida legislature. Representative Bullard is a fierce advocate for both education and immigration reform.

Massachusetts State Representative Sean Garballey was awarded the YEO Community Service Award for his commitment to servant leadership. In 2009, Rep. Garballey donated his share of a pay increase to state legislators to charity, because he did not believe it was fair for his pay to increase while the staff that works tirelessly to support him was being forced to take furloughs. He has also been active in supporting recovery efforts in Haiti after last year’s devastating earthquake.

The Wisconsin state GOP leadership is getting really, really desperate. Charged with the unenviable task of defending Republican state senators against recall elections, the GOP head honchos seems to be running out of ideas.

You know you’re in trouble when your party and candidates are so lacking in credibility that your entire campaign depends on a helping hand from the other side. A secret recording of the GOP general membership meeting last week revealed that their strategy might hinge on the sleep deprivation and intra-party battles of Wisconsin Democrats.

Realizing that Sen. Dan Kepanke’s hope that the large number of public workers in his district decide to “sleep in” on election day probably won’t help him survive a recall, state GOP executive director Mark Jefferson and vice-chairman Julian Bradley came up with an interesting idea: Considering that campaigning for Kepanke would be pretty difficult, why not just campaign for someone else?

That’s exactly what Jefferson and Bradley proposed: running an additional Democratic candidate to compete against Jennifer Shilling in the primary, with the hopes of diverting enough attention and resources to keep Kepanke competitive in the general election.

We are actively keeping our ears to the ground and if anybody knows anybody for a candidate that would be interested on the Democratic side in running in the primary against Jennifer Shilling.... So if anybody knows any Democrats who would be interested, please let us know.

In the buildup to the 2012 election, Republican legislatures across the nation are implementing a tactic many hoped would die with the signing of the Voting Right Act of 1965 -- silencing the voices of those who disagree with them by simply not allowing them to vote. GOP legislators in at least 20 states are working hard to push through restrictive voter-ID laws that all but disenfranchise large, traditionally Democratic segments of the electorate. These laws would require voters to show a government issued photo ID at the polling place, something 11% of US citizens currently lack.

The facts are firmly against such laws. Voters are more likely to be struck by lightening than to commit fraud, and the Bush Justice Department’s five-year “War on Voter Fraud” resulted in only 86 convictions out of nearly 200 million votes cast (a rate of .0000004%). Furthermore, these laws are expensive to implement, wasting millions of dollars in a time when most states are under severe budgetary restraints. So why would Republicans advocate for such an obviously unnecessary law?

Politics, of course.

While 11% of the general population lack government issued photo ID, the number jumps dramatically when looking at traditionally Democratic segments of the population. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice notes that 15% of low-income citizens, 18% of young eligible voters, and 25% of black voters lack identification that would allow them to vote under these new laws. In addition, such ID is more difficult to obtain for these parties, many of whom can’t drive to the DMV to get an ID or lack the supporting documents, such as a birth certificate, necessary to receive an ID.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker just signed a bill that will require voters to show photo identification at the polls. This bill has provoked outrage amongst Wisconsin Democrats, with Stephanie Findley, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party Black Caucus, declaring:

Our proud tradition of open elections and high voter turnout will suffer. And with a stroke of the pen, thousands of African-American citizens will no longer be able to vote, solely because of their lack of identification. We now return to the days before the Voting Rights Act, where literacy tests and poll taxes were the rule.

This is backed up by the numbers. Fewer than half of African Americans in Milwaukee County hold ID that would be accepted at the polls, as compared to 83% of whites.

Florida already had a photo identification law in place, but Gov. Rick Scott recently signed a bill that goes even further, making it more difficult for third-party voter registration organizations to operate. Some such organizations, such as the non-partisan League of Women Voters, are pulling out of Florida all together, claiming the law will make it impossible to operate within the state.

In addition to making life difficult for voter-registration organizations, the new law also stops voters from making out-of-county address changes at the polls, making it more difficult for college students to vote, and shortens the early voting window from 14 days to eight. Five counties in Florida governed by the 1965 Voting Rights Act are declining to implement the new law, waiting for Justice Department approval before making any changes.

GOP activist James Bopp Jr. has played a critical role in eviscerating campaign finance regulations throughout his career as a Republican attorney. He successfully argued in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life that Congress couldn’t prevent corporations from using money from their general treasuries on so-called “issue ads,” and he initially represented the right-wing group Citizens United in the landmark case that ushered in massive corporate involvement in politics (although he did not argue the case in Supreme Court).

After fighting for the power of corporations to increase their already-substantial role in public affairs, now Bopp is launching a pro-GOP political group that seeks to cash-in on the glut of corporate money. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jonesreports that Bopp is one of the founders of the newly formed Republican Super PAC and is set to expand corporate involvement in politics to an even greater degree by having candidates participate in the fundraising for undisclosed corporate dollars:

"The different thing here with our PAC is that we are going to harness the political fundraising of candidates and parties," he says. He explains that the committee will allow candidates and parties to fundraise for their campaigns and party organs at the same time they solicit unlimited, anonymous contributions to the super PAC.

Here's how it works: Say House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) approaches the CEO of Exxon for a contribution to his reelection campaign. Under federal law, the CEO can only give Boehner $2,500. In the past, that’s the end of the conversation. But Bopp's plan envisions Boehner and his campaign asking that same donor—and his company—to pony up more money, as much as he wants, for the Republican Super PAC. The donor can even specify that the money be spent supporting Boehner or attacking his opponent. Then Bopp's PAC can buy ads, send out mailings, canvass neighborhoods, and do all the other things a political campaign typically does on Boehner’s behalf.

…

The Republican Super PAC is the logical outgrowth of Citizens United and a series of other recent court decisions that have overturned long-standing restrictions on corporate campaign spending. Bopp says these rulings allow his new group to go into uncharted campaign finance terrain. "This is perfectly legal," Bopp insists.

In July, Wisconsin voters will start heading to the polls for a series of elections to recall several of the GOP state senators who voted to bust the state’s public employee unions. But the Wisconsin GOP, true to form, has a sneaky plan: they’re trying to change the voting rules to prevent many college students, senior citizens and others without official state IDs from casting votes in the recall election.

Wisconsin’s bill requires voters to use a driver’s license, state ID, military ID, passport, naturalization papers or tribal ID at the polls. Though student IDs are technically permitted, none of the colleges or universities in the state currently use IDs that meet the requirements listed in the bill. And as state Sen. Bob Jauch (D) notes, 175,000 seniors (70 percent of whom are women) do not have driver’s licenses and may have to “get a ride at least 50 miles round trip to obtain an identification card to enable them to continue their constitutional right to vote.” What’s more, the bill will cost the state more than $5.7 million to implement — at a time when Gov. Scott Walker (R) is claiming the state is broke and needs to restrict public employees’ collective bargaining rights to survive.

I can’t imagine that attempting to disenfranchise thousands of voters will do much to endear these lawmakers to Wisconsin’s citizens…but that won’t really matter if they can prevent enough people from casting votes.

Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker suddenly turned an about-face on the issue of public workers. Although he previously believed that the only way to combat the job-killing scourge that is Wisconsin’s public sector was to end their right to collectively bargain for fair wages and benefits, he now believes that Wisconsin’s civil servants make such valuable contributions to the state that they deserve a pat on the back.

As noted in Wonkette, Walker is now accepting nominations within each agency for acknowledgment on an “Employee Recognition Day.”

The Republican drive to eliminate workers’ rights and bust unions has always been a partisan campaign to “defund the left” cloaked in language of ‘fiscal responsibility.’ Wisconsin State Senate Leader Scott Fitzgerald, one of the champions of his state’s anti-union law, even admitted that the plan to dismantle unions for public employees was to undercut progressive political activities and weaken Obama’s state reelection campaign, saying: “If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”

As newly elected Republican state legislatures aggressively push a slew of anti-union measures, the International Association of Fire Fighters is freezing its federal political spending and shifting all resources toward its beleaguered state and local colleagues.

“With the survival of our union and the ability to preserve and protect the rights, wages, and benefits our members deserve in jeopardy in the states, we have re-evaluated how to get the best results from our political dollars,” IAFF President Harold A. Schaitberger said Tuesday in an email blast to members that was obtained by POLITICO.

…

The move by the union is just the latest – and most dramatic – adjustment labor leaders are scrambling to make after Republicans across the nation in January tried to quickly push through new laws that would weaken the movement and its political influence.

In Wisconsin and Ohio, new laws would undermine the collective bargaining rights of most or all public employees. In Missouri, bills have been introduced to loosen wage and child labor laws. In Indiana, lawmakers sought to essentially ban public employee unions by becoming a right-to-work state. In Alabama, lawmakers have eliminated automatic union dues deductions from workers’ paychecks.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on politicking, has caused ripples of sometimes unexpected consequences – from the toppling of long-established state laws to the rise of secretive corporate spending groups that operate outside the reach of disclosure laws. Now The Nation has uncovered another destructive consequence of the decision:

On the eve of the November midterm elections, Koch Industries sent an urgent letter to most of its 50,000 employees advising them on whom to vote for and warning them about the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country should they choose to vote otherwise.

The Nation obtained the Koch Industries election packet for Washington State [1]—which included a cover letter from its president and COO, David Robertson; a list of Koch-endorsed state and federal candidates; and an issue of the company newsletter, Discovery, full of alarmist right-wing propaganda.

Legal experts interviewed for this story called the blatant corporate politicking highly unusual, although no longer skirting the edge of legality, thanks to last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision, which granted free speech rights to corporations.

“Before Citizens United, federal election law allowed a company like Koch Industries to talk to officers and shareholders about whom to vote for, but not to talk with employees about whom to vote for,” explains Paul M. Secunda, associate professor of law at Marquette University. But according to Secunda, who recently wrote in The Yale Law Journal Online about the effects of Citizens United on political coercion in the workplace, the decision knocked down those regulations. “Now, companies like Koch Industries are free to send out newsletters persuading their employees how to vote. They can even intimidate their employees into voting for their candidates.” Secunda adds, “It’s a very troubling situation.”

The Kochs were major supporters of the Citizens United case; they were also chief sponsors of the Tea Party and major backers of the anti-“Obamacare” campaign. Through their network of libertarian think tanks and policy institutes, they have been major drivers of unionbusting campaigns in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere.

“This sort of election propaganda seems like a new development,” says UCLA law professor Katherine Stone, who specializes in labor law and who reviewed the Koch Industries election packet for The Nation. “Until Citizens United, this sort of political propaganda was probably not permitted. But after the Citizens United decision, I can imagine it’ll be a lot more common, with restrictions on corporations now lifted.”